Astral Fall

by Jessica Mae Stover

  Now that they were closer, Thwip’s IF picked up periodic flashes of faint green lines. “Unit be advised, the station’s external security scans are confirmed operative.” He watched the uninterrupted rhythm of the flashes. “No indication of detection by targets.”

  They waited. Their IF scan warnings remained quiet.

  He checked their location and angle against the intel provided on the station’s external scan points to make sure they positioned successfully behind the waybob, then moved his fingers inside his pulse gloves, sending Disar an innerface-to-innerface confirmation. A pinpoint gold flash on his IF meant her confirmation in return.

  “Waybob position achieved,” she confirmed to Sentinel and unit.

  Pilo came back for the unit this time. “Copy that, Disar. Hold position and develop an independent sitrep. Roselaurel unit chatter is open for your observations. Permission for free talk.”

  “You were right,” Disar said to Thwip. “Whoever they are, they activated the station’s emergency scans. They’re using the infrastructure meant to deter them to their advantage.”

  The only information they’d been briefed with was the classification: Facilities Strike, Armed Piracy, and there was still no change on the triangular intel marker on Thwip’s IF. P2 Command hadn’t gained visual access via the station’s internal systems.

  “No new intel,” he said.

  “Hmm.” She frowned, watched the station. “If the Sunway and all of Leto weren’t on lockdown, I’d think this was a training drill. So we have armed pirates that know at least a little something about the station’s security measures, but those scans are easy to initiate. I’d like to know if they know how to monitor those scans, or engage the station’s other defensive capabilities.” Her fingers twitched in fast combinations as she worked her IF.

  Unlike the customized personal hoods that elites received, Command assigned roselaurel hardhoods randomly before each mission, so they were reset to default after each operation. As they watched and waited, they both rearranged tasks on their innerfaces to preference. When a split second could mean success or failure, life or death, pulse glove task organization mattered. Thwip moved a few advanced scan maneuvers to top-level pulse access so that he could use them more immediately.

  The information on his IF came in real-time layers. First, everything in-range became visible as his hood adjusted his composite capture scans into one live master capture. Second, a read on items pictured in the master: object ID, the distance to the docks, the composition of space, targeting, detection of human presence. Third, suit mechs, incoming intel, a body map, weapons status, in-unit visuals, and other crucial internal information sat on the peripheral, waiting until accessed for larger view.

  Units connected their hardhood signals exclusively and could see each other’s faces on their hood innerfaces, along with shared data. Nothing could be seen or heard outside a unit’s suits unless authorized, creating a closed internal loop impossible to intercept so long as it remained undamaged. Tonight, however, Commander Sentinel restricted Thwip and Disar to aural mechs only, no IF visuals, so Thwip couldn’t see Sentinel, Tomtom, or Pilo.

  They’d allowed him and Disar IF visuals on each other. He could see her gold eyes lit by the flicker and glint of her IF, which washed out the finer details of her face, as all hoods did, making her skin look hyper-smooth. In the IF scan she looked younger than seventeen. They both did. He quirked a half grin at her. She raised her eyebrows inquiringly. He bounced both of their scans off the closest dock to account for the blind spot the waybob created.

  “Nice one,” she replied, absorbing the improved image data. “Possible internal movement, Dock 2–3.” Disar twitched her left index finger and pulsed him her IF scan view, so that he could see from her perspective.

  Thwip manually pulse-melded her view to his, giving them a wider overall view.

  “Remind me to ask how you did that.”

  “You won’t forget.”

  “That’s true. What I saw was lower left, my view.” She continued to scan. From her position on his left her vantage on the station’s galleria was slightly superior. They watched the portion of her scan that didn’t overlap with his.

  Even more than for its upscale shops and eateries, Dock 23 was known for its large oval maglev rink, with walls constructed entirely of translucent space-grade healiglass. One half of its side and the floor were open to an unobstructed view of space. A vast aquarium filled with different planetary marine life bordered the rink’s other side and vaulted ceiling. The exterior announced its famous attraction in blinking lights so bright in scan that, as Thwip and Disar began their head-on approach an hour before, it had seemed to shout at them: SKATE-GLIDE WHERE THE STARS KISS THE SEAS! From their current position, flanking the rink, they could only see ARS KISS THE SEAS!

  “That humm freighter hanging half out of the locks doesn’t have long until the dock arms snap and it drifts out of control.” Thwip set his right palm’s pulse pad to vibrate to alert him if the freighter moved. Disar did the same. They were out of its path, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t find their position threatened if it shifted.

  Thwip’s intel marker lit and his IF rippled, signifying incoming data.

  Pilo came over aurals. “We’ve gained access to internal scan capture points. Sending through.”

  “Copy that. Received. Orging it now,” Thwip replied.

  Reviewing live capture was like putting together a huge, three-dimensional small-piece puzzle without knowing what the final picture looked like. His hood processed the initial sequencing autonomously, fusing the capture points by location to deliver a 3-D layout of most of the station. Analysis of these stitched captures depended on human interpretation, however, and tonight more so than usual. Beyond focusing and magnifying detail or pulling out to a wider view, Thwip and Disar had no control over the station’s scan mechs and couldn’t toggle the surveillance categories to try searching by thermal or other readings. With less automated data available, they had to rely on visual exploration. There could be any number of potential targets; they could be moving, or hiding somewhere out of picture; they could be armed with anything, or nothing.

  Views of a corner of the rink, of space, of a random arc wall panel in a public corridor, of the interior of passenger-loading modules: all empty. Thwip categorized the scans according to the shapes and equipment they contained, and improvised data hash headings, feeding them to Disar’s IF. She sorted them, prioritizing readings that might indicate the presence of people, and skimmed through them.

  “Here!” Disar brought forward a capture point with emphasis on her IF, hash-marked SEC RINKSIDE FIVE.

  The rink was dark, but the aquarium’s dim blue lights remained active. The scan picked up detail. Faces. Dozens of people stood in a tight group; others stood in a line. They wore civilian clothing, looked afraid. There were tears and pleading glances. Some were shoeless.

  So that’s their leverage.

  One of the men was armed and pacing the line. The mask of his hardhood was set to transparent, so Thwip saw his face. He looked about thirty and had pale yellow-brown hair and blotchy skin: a mark of poor genoming and few treatments.

  “Disar to unit. Target one visible in rinkside scan five, armed and buffering himself with civilians on the maglev rink, possible angle from below if external healiglass can be breached before the pressure wall activates. Gear analysis needed and movement noted. Standby.” To Thwip, she said, “I’ll get a read on the players.”

  “Copy that. Location’s on me.”

  Thwip rolled through the scan on his IF, swooping through the rink. He shifted to a capture point hashed vaguely as SEC OVERHEAD, a view down from the ceiling. Below, he could see the hostages lined up on the rink around target one. To the left side of the rink, where the floor met the space-side wall, was a solid border, the only portion of that side that wasn’t healiglass. The maglev apparatuses would be hidden there, as well as the mechs for the healiglass base.
The only opaque wall was the closest one, in front of him and Disar, behind which was a lounge where skates were issued, space for music and lighting tech, and an arc wall that was as large as the one in the elite training theater. The line of civilians stretched from the border on the space-side wall across the rink to the aquarium-side wall. They were passing something heavy down the line, one person at a time.

  “Thwip to unit. Target one is using a line of civilians to maglev the interior wall that splits the aquarium and rink. Be advised that if they are connected and activated successfully, the force will shatter the aquarium wall.”

  Disar added to the sitrep. “Multiple targets—ten total. They’re in soft gear: security suits and hoods with transparent masks that lack opaque capability, armed with security busters aimed at civilians. Weapons are live. Two hundred and forty-six civilian hostages in total. Mixed civilian crowd of primarily adults, seventy children; no civilians are wearing protective suits or in possession of offensive gear. No dead bodies in scan. Targets two through ten are off the rink, surrounded by another group of civilians. Hereafter call target one ‘Chief.’ Clear shot on Chief open from below, but he’s in a higher-caliber suit than the other targets, and near the line of civilians. Standby for Chief’s combat capability.”

  Thwip picked up. “Chief’s gear as follows: azure II suit and azure kit hardhood.”

  “Multiple shots in the same location required to breach Chief’s suit and hood. Negative on sniper shot. He has a live weapon aimed at hostages and could fire before total elimination.” Disar looked at Thwip. “Highest-grade private-sector suit available to civilians? That’s a few million credits.”

  “I’m accurate. It’s azure. We don’t have a heat read and the visuals are dark, but the confirmation’s in the basic scan if you recomposite it manually. Private combat suits manage energy differently than military suits, so they show in-scan in deeper blues, and you’ll see these waves here at the suit’s coxa on a second-tier scan on an azure read.” He highlighted Chief’s hip on their IFs.

  “Azure’s almost an equivalent grade to military arrow suits. Another step up, and he’d begin to match some roselaurel suit capabilities. Have to wonder how Chief procured such prime gear.”

  “That tech’s tightly regulated. Unit, can we get intel on a registered owner?” Thwip requested.

  While they waited on a reply, they went through the scans, looking for more aspects of the situation they could use.

  “He might have harvested from what’s available at the docks, along with borrowing that Leto Cross security gear for his friends.” Disar’s eyes tracked over her IF. “I don’t think it’s his suit. Look at the fit at the shoulders. It’s too small for him. Possible weakness if he doesn’t know how to fully operate the azure.”

  “We could dock undetected with just the two of us,” Thwip said. “Chief’s advanced tech is the problem. If we could separate him from the hostages, we could clear him without fallout and at the same time eliminate the other targets.”

  “Agreed. If we can figure out what they want, then we might be able to leverage it to separate them. So what’s the advantage to breaching the aquarium wall inside the rink?” Disar devoted her IF to targets two through ten. “It’s too far from the outer healiglass to shatter the space-side wall. And anyway, if they blow those, the emergency pressure walls would activate to protect everyone inside from exposure to space. Targets can’t defeat or override that mechanism—”

  “Correct,” Pilo responded. “Continue.”

  “So they’re not intending to space the hostages. Pressure walls will provide thick coverage and prevent the possibility of a sniper shot. They’re in a glass cage now. If they shatter the internal aquarium wall, they won’t overdamage the external space-side wall, and the external pressure walls will go up, protecting them. Maybe they’re smart enough to trigger the pressure walls and give themselves more cover than just the hostages? But if they set off the maglevs far enough inside to set off the pressure walls, the aquarium wall will shatter. If they want more cover, why not perform a tactical relocation farther inside the galleria, where the walls aren’t transparent?”

  As Thwip ran the numbers for the aquarium’s volume on his IF, Disar ran them for the volume of the maglev rink. They finished at the same time and Thwip performed the summary.

  “The aquarium volume exceeds the rink’s by 22 percent. They’ll shatter the aquarium wall, but won’t create enough force to shatter the outer walls of the rink and expose the hostages to space. Destroying the glass around the aquarium, however, will free up the 24 million liters of aquarium water to flood and overfill the rink.”

  “Targets have sealed the interior entry that connects the maglev rink and café to the rest of the galleria,” Disar said grimly, confirming officially what they already knew: with the entry sealed, the rink was an enclosed space. “Unit be advised: targets are capable of flooding the rink.”

  “Correct,” said Pilo.

  If they already know this, then why are we here? We could have practiced observation and sitrep with a training sim. Thwip hitched his scan, seized by a terrible thought. Did we take too long to gain position? What if this was supposed to be our mission, but we errored out, and they sidelined the rescue op?

  “Motivation still unknown.” Disar continued to pace through the scene aloud. “Targets two through ten are wearing security suits and hoods; they can’t swim in them, but they’ll be protected and can walk weighted on the floor. The hostages are suitless and will drown.… If this is a Yasslozah operation, then they’ll just want to kill people as dramatically as possible.”

  Thwip scanned and pulsed for data about the aquarium. “The intel label is armed piracy. Isn’t the point of stealing to get away with the steal?”

  “If they aren’t suiciders, then it’s better for them to create some chaos and divide any official attention they’ve attracted while they escape. To your point, they are wearing protective suits. That behavior’s not typical of Yasslozah suicide attacks. It’s either a negotiation tactic or a distraction. Maybe both.”

  Target one’s maglev setup is correct. It will function. It’s not a bluff. He looked at his palm and remembered the humm freighter. It has to be a getaway distraction. Targets are going to flood it and exit during the chaos. Humm freighter is fucking insanely heavy and half out of the locks already. Targets could take it and threaten to crash it into vital infrastructure if we chase them. We need to intervene now. We didn’t error out. There’s still time.

  “I’m thinking the freighter,” Disar said.

  Thwip pulsed her an affirmative gold flash. “Unit be advised that if the internal aquarium wall is compromised, civilian drowning causalities certain. Dock Two-Three will sustain heavy damage. Freighter at Dock Two-Five may undock with targets aboard, with intention to cause further damage or escape.”

  For a second time there was no reply from unit, despite Thwip’s formal report procedure. Thwip looked up at Disar through their IF connection. It was a new feeling: alone and blind on mission with no support.

  “Request confirmation on our last,” Disar said.

  “Copy that, roselaurel recruits,” Tomtom barked, as if they were in morning drill. “Your status is observational only. Unit chatter remains open. You don’t need to request or wait on unit reply.”

  We only have minutes! Why is Sentinel holding us back? We might lose some civilians if we exchange fire, but we wouldn’t lose them all, and the structural damage would be minimized.

  Thwip skimmed public info on healiglass specs on his IF and watched the targets. In the scan they showed in shadowed silhouette against the water’s blue light. The finer shape of Chief’s azure suit stood out next to the rest of the targets’ bulky gear. Target number four leaned against the wall for support, the sculpt of his security suit trembling as it released and collapsed, low on power and denied connection to UNP sources. Chief put two fingers to target four’s withering wrist, where the pulse gloves met the sui
t. Thwip’s stomach tightened. Target four’s suit regained capability, and he stood off the wall.

  “That’s an independent energy transfer. Chief knows how to fully operate that azure,” Thwip warned.

  “Timeline’s getting tight,” Disar said. “Sniper shot is the only actionable plan we’ve mounted, and we’d have to set it up now.”

  What does it matter, if they aren’t going to let us do anything?

  He twitched a finger, pulsing an emergency signal to the loop: “Thwip to unit, requesting permission to take offensive action before targets rupture the aquarium, over.”

  Tomtom came back quickly: “Negative.”

  Is it suit-related? “Request for unit refit into alternative suits or to breach and proceed suitless in order to move on this mission, over.”

  “Negative. Friendlies already in position. You are observational only. Hold position. How copy?”

  “Wilco,” Thwip confirmed his compliance. Friendlies in there—where are they? Who could they send that’s more qualified than elite recruits?

  Disar looked at Thwip pointedly, and his IF rippled with a transfer from her. From the scan intel haul she discovered another capture angle positioned inside the rink, low, floor level, about five meters from Chief, no hash identifier. It was not stitched to the other captures.

  Thwip moved his finger to push in to the capture for more detail, but unlike the other internal points, he couldn’t control its focus. “Do you have push on this scan?”

  “Negative. I can’t access it like the others. You?”

  “No joy.”

  Thwip manually overlapped capture points on both of their IFs, stitching the unidentified one into the rest while keeping it at center. From this new point they could better see civilian faces as they passed a maglev one-by-one down their line until the last, a taller man with a security buster pointed at his head, held it to the aquarium wall with both hands. The maglev did the rest, auto-attaching.